Whether you are just a new coach or you have just started to consider the idea of coaching soccer, there are a few tips that you are going to find helpful.  As a soccer coach to children you are a positive role model and an authority figure they will look up to.  You need to be friendly, outgoing and caring if you want to coach soccer.  You need to be friendly and outgoing so children will be interested and want to be more involved in their soccer lessons.

When you are teaching the kids on your team different drills, make sure that you do not try cramming everything into their brain all at once.  This is going to force too much information on them and they will just end up overloaded.  Kids have a lot going on in their lives with schoolwork and other things so you want to make sure they have time to breathe outside of their soccer lessons.  This is going to help the players retain the information you are giving them better, and be better soccer players as a result.

This way they are not forced to cram everything in all at once and as well, they will not be overwhelmed with their soccer practice, school and everything else they have going on in their lives.  For youth soccer which is ages 9-12 the goal of your soccer practice plans should be to teach basic tactical development of players, encourage minimum touches of ball for every player and teach them the proper receiving and passing skills.  Soccer is basically more about having fun until children reach the youth soccer group at which point things start to be taken much more seriously.  This is especially true considering this is when most soccer scouts will start to head out and look for young children that are showing potential in the sport.

You will also need to spend time focusing on defending, midfield and attacking principles.  These are all key areas that youth soccer players need to be strengthening.  Using only their feet to maintain control of the ball, the player needs to work on their defensive skills by keeping the ball from other players doing whatever they can.  To do this drill, one player at a time will make their way through “pirates” which are other players who are set up in a line and who try to take the ball away.

The purpose of this drill is to teach players different moves and maneuvers which will work to teach them how to keep the ball from getting taken away.  Now you want to have one team work on their passing moves to get the ball across the field and into the opposing team’s net.  Passing is an essential strength in every soccer game and if your players are not able to pass effectively and without hesitation, they are not going to win many games.  They will learn different techniques to pass to other players on their team to get a goal.

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